In the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a base station delivers a measurement configuration message to a user equipment (UE) that the base station serves, to instruct the UE to measure signal quality of a source cell and a neighboring cell of the source cell. When the signal quality of the neighboring cell meets a handover condition, the UE reports a measurement result to a source base station. The source base station determines whether to perform a handover according to the measurement report reported by the UE. In some cases, for example, when the UE is at a relatively fast speed, the UE passes a cell edge, or the like, the UE may be handed over from cell 1 to cell 2, stay in cell 2 for a relatively short time and then be handed over again to a cell 3.
In the prior art, a fixed time threshold is configured, on a base station, for all services and UEs, and the time threshold is referred to as a default time threshold, which is used to determine length of a time of stay of a UE in a cell. In the foregoing case in which the UE is handed over from cell 1 to cell 2, stays in cell 2 for a relatively short time, and is handed over again to cell 3, when a time of stay of the UE in cell 2 is shorter than the foregoing fixed time threshold, the handover is referred to as a fast handover. When the case, in which the UE is handed over from cell 1 to cell 2, stays in cell 2 for a time shorter than the configured fixed time threshold, and is handed over again to cell 3, occurs, the handover from cell 1 to cell 2 is considered an unnecessary handover in the prior art. In the prior art, if the number of unnecessary handovers reaches a certain value, a handover parameter needs to be adjusted according to collected unnecessary handover cases, so that the UE is directly handed over from cell 1 to cell 3.
A possible cause of the unnecessary handover is that an improper handover parameter is configured on a base station to which cell 1 belongs; therefore, the base station may determine whether an unnecessary handover occurs according to the default time threshold. If the time of stay in cell 2 is shorter than the default time threshold, it is determined that an unnecessary handover occurs. A base station, to which a cell where the unnecessary handover is discovered (that is, cell 2) belongs, sends a notification message to a base station to which a cell where the unnecessary handover is triggered (that is, cell 1) belongs, so as to notify the base station to which the cell 1 belongs that an unnecessary handover of the UE occurs. In this way, the base station to which cell 1 belongs performs subsequent parameter optimization according to the collected unnecessary handover cases to reduce unnecessary handovers, thereby reducing signaling overhead caused by unnecessary handovers.
In the prior art, however, a problem that a performance penalty is caused due to an improper method of determining an unnecessary handover exists; therefore, an optimized method for determining an unnecessary handover is required.